Pinin’ for the Fjords

It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! This ferret is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late ferret! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies! It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This… is an ex…

Wait, never mind.

Another Quality Foraged Link from AQFL.net P.S. The palindrome of “Phillip P.” would be “Ppillihp”! It don’t work!

That’s a little scary! I like how ferret’s leetle mouth silently chatters a couple of times in his sleep, though. Quite reassuring. My Isabella has done this a few times, and it IS scary, for Mom, anyway. Each time I’ve frantically woke her up, and she responds with a “What’s your problem? I was sleepin!” expression. Anyway, I’ve missed you, CO! I’ll love you even if you look a bit weird. ;-)

I’ve had a coupla ratties who had that look of death down when they slept….they’d get so annoyed when I’d check on ‘em (omg, izze alive? Izze alive??? “YES, fer chrissake, I’m alive already! What, ya couldn’t see me breathin??”))

Best part of the video was the other slinky-in-a-furry-knee-sock in the background wreaking havoc (because that’s what they do when they’re not sleeping, you see…getting into creative mischief).

We’ve had a few rats that sleep that deeply and it was always nerve-wracking, especially if they were sick and we were worried they would die. One of the very, very few times I’ve ever been bitten was when I scooped up Puddles in the middle of one of his patented “Sleeping Beauty” naps and he woke up in my hands, his “predator gottened meh!” response kicked in, and he tried to kill my thumbnail before I could calm him down. From the look of this video, ferrets (as predators) probably don’t have that same instinctive freakout when waking unexpectedly.

I didn’t realize cats also did the SND thing. (sleeping, not dead) I thought it was only ferrets. My one ferret did that a lot. I finally stopped waking her up and just watched for the breathing.

Side note: If you want to see the wild cousins of this ferret – the black-footed ferret – check out the Smithsonian National Zoo. They have a webcam in a nest box of a black-footed ferret and right now the ferret in the nest box has three babies. It will be while before they get to knee-sock size!

umm, actually, it’s not normal usually for ferrets to sleep so soundly. Poor ferret probably has low blood sugar. Ferrets get insulinoma (a cancer in the pancreas that causes low blood sugar) very commonly, and this is one of the symptoms. It may be cute, but it is not something that’s good.

Awww, cute! I used to work in a pet store, and the ferrets were my favorite animal to play with:) I think the reason they sleep so hard is because they play so hard when they’re awake. I’ve actually seen awake ferrets bite the sleeping ones and drag them around and they stay asleep! Fun animals:)

Picture a cat. A bored cat. He decides he wants to wrestle a houseweasel. So he walks up to their nest and slaps one. It doesn’t wake up. Cat is puzzled. Tries again. Nope. Pretty soon you have a cat dragging a houseweasel around the living room floor by the scruff of the neck while it yawns…

Dragonvet: I went and read up on this from as many sources as I have time for in one sitting. Yes, insulinoma is common in ferrets, and entering a comatose state is one common symptom. But the “dead sleep” also seems to be a common ferretism, including in ferrets whose owners know of insulinoma to have their pet tested for it. So while it could be a possibility, insisting it’s the only possibility seems a bit over the top, don’chathink?

I had a couple of ferrets that I adopted from a house where there had been a drug bust – cocaine to be exact and apparently one of the ferrets (Maggie) got INTO the cocaine. I always wondered if Maggie’s strange habit of “SND” was some neurological damage from accidently snorfing coke – after seeing this I am happy to finally know I was wrong! She would sleep soundly with her eyes partly open and her little ferret mates (also rescues) Maggie and Molly would take turns dragging her around the apartment…that part was hysterical!!

Nah, Dragonvet, lethargy may be a symptom of insulinoma, but what’s happening in this video is a very common behavior of healthy ferrets. It’s seen a lot in young wild weasels, too, so I think it’s a mustelid thing. :3

@Dragonvet: SND is something that healthy, unaltered or late-altered ferrets do. Many ferrets now are spayed/neutered and de-scented before they are three months old and as a result, they are more prone to issues like insulinoma and adrenal disease.

My first ferret was not spayed until she was over a year old (she had one litter). She used to do “sleeping not dead” regularly.

The four ferrets I’ve had since then were all altered very early in life; none of them ever sleep that deep. The only time one did seem to sleep very deep was – as you mentioned – when he was older and started to develop insulimona.

This time, instead of using HTML tags, I’ll just post the webcam link that I mentioned earlier.

Wow, that was relieving to watch…knowing that there are other ‘parents’ out there whose ‘kids’ freak them out with the Sleep of Death! *insert lightning & thunder here*

We are owned by a sweet-as-pie cat who’s about 16 years old, and SHE has this sort of dozing perfected. I will walk by her several times, only to see she’s not moved a whisker in about 3 hours. So naturally, I have to go over & poke at her to make sure she’s still alive (I do this to my napping grandparents too, as they’re in their late 80’s! *L*). They ALL have a tendency to take a while to respond.

@Emily – Probably. Plus, playing dead” is an opossum-approved strategy – also one of the strategies advised during bear attacks – and probably effective at keeping young ferret-kids from hassling Mom awake to play every 12 minutes? Hee.

My 4 would SND all together in a little pile. The itty bitty would be on the bottom and my ginormo rescue who had been given too much food instead of too little and was constantly on a diet with me would sleep on top. I was always digging into the pile to “save” the little bitty Nami, who would reward me with gentle but clearly impassioned “leave me alone, mom!” nips. Ahh, I miss them.

And, I missed CO. Was sad yesterday.

And I agree with QoD. Yeah, he’s cool for loving the lil guy, but no, sexy wouldn’t be my choice of words for him. And, yeah, I also kinda wanted the ferret to give him a half-serious nose chomp lol.

Yes. My rats do that too… sleeping with their eyes all open, dead gaze, hanging limply, inducing screams of agony…
..and after having woken up, inducing bad conscience for ruining what must be a hell of a sweeeet sleep.

And I don’t see any reason to think the guy was/would mistreat his animals. This ferret did not mind…and I don’t anything he was doing could’ve injured it. Thus, no harm done except perhaps to dignity; the ferret, being unconscious, still would not know or care.

Cleopatra and Jeff…thank you!!! Let sleeping ferrets lie, and help someone
in your neighborhood who’s animal needs to be walked or fed. Your
amusement in tugging and pinching her is sickening. Grow up…

it’s hard to know what a ferret’s feeling – they have no eyebrows and very wee ears … some of them will nip (and even bite) but most don’t … they’re mostly just happy-go-lucky party guys … but very affectionate and funny … i think this guy is a perfect ferret person …

I’m not worried about it. It’s kinda obvious that poster never played with a ferret, the stories of their own mouthiness/nippiness in play are rampant. Tugging at that loose skin and fur looks odd, but it’s not the same as pinching painfully. Elisa Wolfe should read http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=2208 and http://www.cypresskeep.com/Ferretfiles/Lingo-FUSA.htm (look for “Scruffing”) before accusing anyone of “pinching”. Actually, read that second one anyway, it contains plenty of funny. ;) Unlike adult cats, from what I gather adult ferrets can still be safely grasped this way, and it’s even recommended for certain grooming tasks to which the ferret might otherwise object. (It’s also mentioned on some sites I saw that their jaws will close automatically on whatever gets in them, when held this way – it’s a reflex action but “keep your fingers clear”. Sage advice!)

Speedy, my little sock-weasel, had two speeds: fast and off!
He was usually closely supervised when he was out playing in the house.
I was searching for him and found him stuck under a piece of furniture. His head fit, but his well-fed body couldn’t follow.
Unable to get a response from his limp, lifeless, body, I drove him to the vet close by
By the time I had checked in, Speedy was laughing and dancing around the waiting room! “Haha. Iz not dead!”.

I have an old (20 yrs) cat that sleeps like that. I am always looking to see if she is still breathing.
One day she was sleeping on the front porch and I looked out to see the mail carrier crouched down, staring at her with a concerned look on her face. I stepped out and she said, “I said ‘hi there kitty’ several times and she never moved, even when I got loud, I thought she was dead” Yeah, she is nearly deaf too.

My ferrets did that ALL the time. One would be dead sleep, and the other would be out playing. So I’d stick the sleeper in my sweat shirt’s roo-pouch and just go about my business with them in my pocket until they woke up.

It’s not normal for them to dead sleep through playtime if they have regular playtime at the same time everyday. They’ll be awake and expecting it then, but if you spring playtime at them during a time you normally don’t, there might be at least one ferret who sleeps through it!

A Monty Python reference – yeah! You gots to love the Monty’s! My ferrets used to sleep like coma patients also. Once I got used to that, I didn’t worry about them anymore. They play hard doing the dance of joy, chattering and they sleep hard. Miss my little weaselly furbabies.

Why all the hate on sexy, hairy man, anyway? He’s not dirty; yeesh, he’s just not preened his body like a peacock. Hair is not equal to dirt.

I like my men to look like MEN. Not barely-pubescent hairless boys. Men should look just a few steps away from the cave; nice and husky and burly and thick-bodied with a bit of chub, and lots of hair. Mmmm…

Bunny, why all the hate on sexy, hairless men, anyway? I don’t think my fiance, fairly low in the hair department, would like to be told that he looks like a “barely-pubescent hairless boy”. If you insist on tolerance of what you like, it is bad form to turn around and insult what YOU don’t find attractive.

My ferret often does this. It’s not cruel to move an animal in dead sleep, and he is in no way harming her. My ferret does more damage to herself running around then that. Besides, my ferret is rather happy when she wakes up out of her cage and next to me so she can hop right into play time…It is freaky to see and hold her like that!

a former kitty was a master-sleeper… i was babysitting my 2 year old granddaughter and said cat was doing her best imitation of a throw rug, when my elderly dad came in the front door…. lilly met him at the door with a sprightly ” cats dead”. my dad asked me if he needed to go get his shovel so he could bury her. both cat and lilly got a huge laugh out of this.